Welcome to Learning and Teaching 2020. These pages celebrate innovative practice in teaching, learning and assessment at DMU. Much of this work has been supported by DMU Teaching Innovation awards. This resource encourages the sharing of new ideas, to inspire and inform colleagues across the university. It also provides support to seeking HE Academy recognition through our Define scheme. All thanks to the many colleagues who have agreed to share their ideas and achievements in this site.

In addition to the many ways of searching the resources on this home page, we have three structured areas exploring DMU’s exciting learning & teaching work. The first explores Universal Design for Learning – the approach adopted at DMU to enhance learning and teaching for ALL our students. The area called 20:20 Vision is designed to help both staff teaching in the sector for the first time and experienced colleagues looking for new ideas. We also have an area covering the work of the DMU Fellows – our many National Teaching Fellows and those recognised through the internal Teacher Fellows scheme.

If you have any comments on or ideas for LT2020 please contact us on TES@dmu.ac.uk.

In Partnership with the Political Studies Association, DMU Leicester Castle Business School (LCBS) launched a national undergraduate research conference in Politics, International Relations, and related disciplines.

A DMU Leicester Castle Business School submission to AACSB’s ‘Innovations That Inspire’ by Dr Alison Statham…

This clip evaluates the effectiveness of the pedagogic approach of students, whereby students work together in a number of ways to enhance each- others learning. Jason and William identify and evaluate studies and the academic support for the use of peer to peer learning methods. They link this pedagogic approach to the UDL framework and how it enhances students learning.

Avril and Louise explained the reasons for and benefits to students learning for the development of academic skills. After evaluation of student feedback and communications they decided to develop a conference with a variety of skills for academic success, whereby the students could make a choice as to which workshop they would attend. This is a very useful way to touch a large number of students and make contact with those unlikely to initially ask for learning support.

They give a detailed account of the conference and student feedback on the value of the conference.

Julie discusses the importance of supporting students at DMU as the university has a high proportion of students with learning differences.

She evaluates the importance of inclusivity at DMU especially in the regard to the government changes in funding to student support in this area. She reflects on the awareness of the issues around dyslexia from the students’ perspective. This is related to possibly more inclusive approaches to teaching styles and advocates the Universal Design for Learning approach.

Rob discusses the technical development of High Street as a Virtual Learning Environment built within Blackboard platform. It is a flexible tool that can be continually adapted to include updates in the field of the NHS and Social Welfare. The Academic staff own this research and can add content themselves.

Bernadette evaluates the use of the virtual community in the field of midwifery. This resource is a dynamic learning tool as it gives real life scenarios for the students to gain knowledge and develop assessment of understanding in a safe environment. This enhances the pedagogic approach of scenario based learning or problem based learning.

She emphasises the need for continual training of staff in the use of the VLE and of updating and inputting of new resources.

This resource is an effective example of strategic aims of the Universal Design for Learning.

Jenny discusses how she is implementing the distance learning pedagogic approaches to the large on site groups for MScs in Intelligence systems and Robotics. She is basically expanding the use of Lecture Capture, and resources through blackboard and specialist computing software which is course specific. This is very useful in terms of developing the overall aims of Universal Design for Learning, the pedagogic approach that is a DMU strategic aim. She discusses how the use of on line communications and students use of media to enhance their assessment projects and the general effectiveness of on line communications, discussions boards and feedback through Blackboard.

Ros discusses how Reflective Journals are embedded into the professional Housing courses and how they are used to evaluate real work scenarios and enhance skills. These journals are a compulsory element of her courses but they are now in the process of moving to e-journals instead of being paper based.

As the course has a blended learning approach which is moving further towards distance learning, the use of e-journals will be more efficient and effective. These are more effective as the use of videos instead of presentations can be used, which tends to disadvantages some students.

This is a good example of how reflective can be developed to enhance learning.

Stephen examines the development of the use of reflective journals on the Policing Degree. Reflective e-journals are embedded into the Practice route, which allows the training police to reflect on their experience in the field. The use of the e-journal saves on paper work and easier to access for students and staff. Although this approach is voluntary it is proving invaluable for those new to policing the opportunity to evaluate their real life experiences and actions in the field. This enhances the experiences of the young police new to the rigours of policing in the community little known by them.